Photos of the Day 05/24

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A caretaker bathes elephants at a state zoological park in Gauhati, India. Representatives of eight countries where elephants roam freely are meeting to secure a future for the animal increasingly under threat. Anupam Nath/AP

US President Barack Obama and Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron play table tennis at Globe Academy, in south London. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama traded-in Irish charm for the pomp and pageantry of Buckingham Palace on their state visit to Britain at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II. Paul Hackett/AP

A member of the Streb Extreme Action Company breaks through a framed panel of mock glass during ground breaking ceremonies for a new Whitney Museum, in New York. The nine-story, metal-clad building, which will include a series of asymmetrical rooftops for outdoor exhibitions facing the High Line and the nearby Hudson River, is designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and will nearly double the museum's current gallery space. Richard Drew/AP

Coco, a blue parrot, is perched on a branch at the zoo in Asuncion, Paraguay. Coco arrived at the zoo eight years ago when he was retrieved from a band of wildlife traffickers after their arrest. According to the zoo's vet, Coco has since learned to say 'hello,' and will start to dance at the sound of cumbia music. Jorge Sanez/AP

A dog crosses the Broye river on a warm summer day in Lucens, near Lausanne. Following a warm winter, combined with unusually high temperatures and few rain over the last month, the water levels of the lakes and rivers in Switzerland have fallen. Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Children in traditional Bavarian clothes wait for the arrival of Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel, the Duke of Vastergotland, at a beer garden in Aying near Munich. The royal couple is on a visit to Germany with stops in Munich and Berlin. Michael Dalder/Reuters

A farmer (l.) and a rescue worker collect sheep near the village of Kirkjubaejarklaustur. People living next to the glacier where the Grimsvotn volcano burst into life on Saturday were most affected, with ash shutting out the daylight and smothering buildings and vehicles. Ingolfur Juliusson/Reuters

Alicia Gordon cries after finding her bridal bouquet while looking through her destroyed home after a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Mo. A monster tornado killed at least 116 people in Joplin, when it tore through the heart of the small Midwestern city, ripping the roof off a hospital and destroying thousands of homes and businesses. Eric Thayer/Reuters

A sparrow hunts insects on a warm spring day in a park in Bucharest, Romania. Romania is experiencing temperatures higher than the usual averages for this time of year. Vadim Ghirda/AP

An Indian man holds his hand out as he begs in an underpass in central New Delhi. Despite India's growing economy, hundreds of millions of people in the country survive on less than $2, or €1.42 per day. Kevin Frayer/AP

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill attend a religious service to mark the Day of St. Cyril and Methodius, founders of the Cyrillic alphabet, on Red Square with the Cathedral of St. Basil in background Moscow, Russia. Sergey Ponomarev/AP

Anti-government protesters hold their hands together during a rally to demand the ouster of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa. Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

A Russian Soyuz TMA-20 space capsule lands about 93 miles south-east of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan. The Soyuz capsule, which carried two astronauts Italian Paolo Nespoli, American Cady Coleman, and Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratiev safely returned to Earth after a half-year stint on the international space station. Mikhail Metzel/AP

Young men slide down a rope during a military training exercise in Misrata, Libya. Rodrigo Abd/AP

People walk as they play soccer near the residence of former South African President Nelson Mandela, situated in Qunu on the outskirts of Mthatha, South Africa. South Africa says former President Nelson Mandela is resting in his home village on his first trip since being briefly hospitalized earlier this year. Schalk van Zuydam/AP

On Friday, Russia's sports ministry denied accusations of state-sponsored doping that implicate more than 1,000 athletes across more than 30 sports in sample swapping, tampering with samples, and taking steroid cocktails designed to evade Olympic testing.